


Hesitation

by dante_alicheery



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Friends turned Enemies, Memory Wipe, Missing Scene, Mission Gone Wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-19 05:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1457113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dante_alicheery/pseuds/dante_alicheery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The car on her right opened up its doors, and she slipped a gun free of her holster… and hesitated. There was a flash of metal in her field of vision, a glimpse of a familiar mask, and the chill of memory sliced through her stomach."</p><p>Natasha didn't tell Steve everything about that day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hesitation

It was a routine op. Clint was singing Whitney Houston in her ear, the info had all lined up for once, and the asset was already in the car. The drop point was only a couple of miles away, and with the way she drove, that meant about five minutes in transit.

Simple. Easy.

The only snare was one she couldn’t have anticipated. 

For who anticipates the Winter Soldier? Department X had been shattered with the Cold War. As far as she knew he was still in the deep freeze, and like to stay that way. Until she could find a plausible reason to go to Siberia and get him out.

And the asset? He was nothing— a scientist with a new metallic alloy SHIELD wanted. Nothing anyone would send an assassin for. Unless there was something someone wasn’t telling her. Unless her intel was shit.

That more, more than seeing the Soldier, more than getting shot, is what pissed her off about the whole thing.

Dr. Klein was all buckled in in the back seat, safe as an egg in an elementary school experiment, so she didn’t play too safe, rocketing out of the parking garage and onto the street, then to the interstate between the lab and the rendezvous point where Coulson was waiting with a helicopter, when two black SUVs shot out alongside, ramming into the car. 

Immediately she put on the brakes, but they anticipated her. Almost out of nowhere, another slammed into her trunk; jostling the now-panicking scientist and making her head slam into the headrest. 

“We’ve hit a snag,” she snarled into the headset, in the middle of Clint’s rendition of “I’m Every Woman,” and he cut off. 

“’Tasha—”

“Three cars, unknown number of assailants,” she continued as she checked over her shoulder. The asset appeared to be shaken but fine, but through the window behind his head she could see a group of black-clad men emerge from the car. “At least five, maybe more. No clear markings.”

Coulson came in over the line, curt with worry. “Don’t engage. We’re on our way.”

“Might not have a choice,” she muttered under her breath. She double-checked her weapons: two guns, two extra clips, electrical gauntlets (the ones Clint called the Widow’s Bite, which always made her roll her eyes and promise to show him what a real bite felt like later) boot knife and a garrote around her wrist for good measure. 

But a few mercs poured out of the ruined SUV, five at first glance, and though under any other circumstance she wouldn’t be worried, she has an asset’s safety to think about. She couldn’t take too many chances.

So she shifted back into her seat and poured on the gas, whipping around the SUVs in her way with a deft flick of the wrist. The chase started up again, the enemy vehicles drawing right up alongside her, boxing her in, despite the fact that she was pushing a hundred on that flat stretch of road. 

The car on her right opened up its doors, and she slipped a gun free of her holster… and hesitated. There was a flash of metal in her field of vision, a glimpse of a familiar mask, and the chill of memory sliced through her stomach. 

It gave him just enough time to do something to her engine block, sending the car careening into the other one, even as she tried to fight it straight. Her back screeched with pain from the whiplash.

“Fuck,” she snarled, bringing out her other weapon for good measure. 

“‘Tasha, talk to me,” Clint demanded, and by the tone of his voice, she knew he had said a lot of other things she hadn’t caught. 

“Still in one piece,” she responded as she unbuckled her seatbelt. “But we won’t be if you don’t get your ass over here, Barton.” 

She looked over her shoulder to see that the asset had gone pale, his hands clutching his briefcase to his chest, eyes wide as a horse spooked by a snake. “Get down, Dr. Klein, don’t worry, help is on the way.”

The car was trapped between both vehicles, she noted. Not enough room to run, barely enough to fight. 

So she opened the door and stepped out as the next net of mercs came to ensnare them, guns blazing. She got three before the Soldier himself hit the ground, keeping the car between himself and her. 

But the minute she saw him move towards them, she pulled the trigger, all hesitation gone, cold panic numbing any sense of regret she might feel later, but he then he would duck behind a door or the engine. She manages to hit every one of his lackeys¬— from both cars— all of the ones that try for her, at any rate, but the Soldier himself never seemed to be where her bullets were, and she had to sink behind the open door to avoid the flurries he sent her way. Still one clipped her in the shoulder. 

Soon enough her bullets were gone, and after several tense minutes of silence, she heard his footfalls, heavy and deliberate. There was no sign of Coulson in the helicopter, nor the ridiculously loud roar of Clint’s motorcycle. 

But she could hear him shouting in her ear, begging for a update, but her voice had frozen her throat.

She only came close to beating him in hand-to-hand once, after she had graduated from the Black Widow program, after they had already been sleeping together for weeks. A sparring match without any superiors watching, just for the fun of it, matching each other blow for blow, until he flipped her on her back and ended it early with his mouth on hers. 

She had vowed, after they were done, both of them lying on the foam floor, that she’d beat him next time. They never had the chance; he’d been put on ice after he’d deliberately allowed a little girl to live, even after she saw him take out her father. 

He was in the middle of the road now, fully visible, his steps quicker once he realized she was well and truly out of bullets. He wasn’t. The crack in the air after she had tried to meet him told her that. 

She studied him as he moved toward her; he truly hadn’t aged in all that time. But his face, that face she had run her hands over, that she had kissed every inch of, held no recognition. They had taken even those memories away from him. 

The asset whimpered behind her. He was curled up on the seat like a rabbit in a hole, too panicked to get into a better position, and she told him in a rough whisper to stay down, that she would do everything she could to keep him alive. 

And she did. She put her body between the incoming Soldier and the asset’s shaking form. 

The Soldier brought his gun to bear just out of her reach, but close enough that he couldn’t possibly miss. “Get out of the way,” he ordered in Russian. 

Whatever was left of her conditioning flinched at his voice, but she held firm. “No. You want him, you’ll have to go through me,” she answered, in English. The language he had taught her, so long ago.

So he did. Two rounds, one hitting her hip, another her shoulder. Neither fatal to her, both deadly to the asset; one hit him in the kidney, another through the stomach. Impossible shots, both of them. Angles that didn’t make any sense. 

Natasha fell to her knees after they connected, cursing at herself for not remembering: The Winter Soldier always finishes his mission. 

It was as she fell that she saw a flitter of recognition cross his face, the kind reserved for images from childhood, or the face of a stranger you see on the subway every day. Impersonal. If she were anyone else, it would have cause despair. 

Then it broke through. His eyes widened, his nostrils flared and he said her name— not the name she uses now, but the one she used then— “Natalia.”

But then there was the slam of helicopter blades hitting the air, the roar of a motorcycle engine, Russian shouted over the noise. The Soldier vanished back into the SUV, the only one left unscathed, and back into the world of shadows. 

“Natasha!” Clint shouted, and the next thing she saw was his face; a mask of worry, eyes wide and nostrils flaring with panic, she could even see his heartbeat rabbiting in his throat. His hands came down to lift her to him, not a thought for the asset dying behind her. 

“James,” she said, mostly to herself. Her vision was clouding over with red dots. “We have to—”

“Phil, she’s been shot, and she’s not making sense,” Clint shouted over his shoulder. Through the splatters of crimson, she can see her handler running towards them, his phone already pressed to his ear, calling for a med team.

And James was long gone. 

~

When she told Steve later what happened, when she warned Steve how dangerous the Soldier was, she left out the fact that she knew him, left that little twist of recognition out. Even if the Winter Soldier was who she thought he was, that information was strictly need-to-know.

Steve didn’t, and the last thing she wanted him to do is hesitate if an opportunity came.


End file.
